History of IDEA
Jeannie Oakes, Founder and Former Director
Youth Voice in School Finance
NEW REPORT: Los Angeles' road to A-G for all
Without Dollars and Sense Powerpoint
Past Educational Opportunity Reports
Poll on NCLB: Americans want overhaul (but does Congress?)
- 02-09-2011
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Guest blog by Monty Neill/Washington Post
A new USA Today/Gallup poll shows that a strong majority of Americans support a major overhaul of No Child Left Behind or total elimination of the law. Among all respondents with opinions about NCLB, only about a quarter said, "Keep basically as is." Democrats, Republicans and Independents share these opinions in very similar ratios. (NCLB is the current version of the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act, ESEA.) More precisely: 16% want to “eliminate law”; 41% said, “keep with major revisions”; 21% replied, “keep as basically is”; and 21% had no opinion or did not know enough to say. What is it the people want to change? From other surveys and qualitative evidence from gatherings around the country, such as those Public Education Network held a few years ago, people understand that standardized testing is out of control, eating up too much time and narrowing the curriculum. They grasp that the sanctions that punish troubled schools are not helpful and that many schools lack the resources to do a good job. (more...)
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